2017 in review: annual CAFI-DRC partnership monitoring meeting

Posted on December 29, 2017 7:44:00 AM

The annual CAFI-DRC partnership monitoring meeting, hosted in Kinshasa, was attended by the CAFI Executive Board and the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo to discuss progress over the past 12 months.

Kinshasa, 27-28 November: This past November (27-28), the annual CAFI-DRC partnership monitoring meeting was hosted in Kinshasa. Representing the CAFI Executive Board, the Secretariat was joined by the Governments of Norway and France in meeting with the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo to assess progress over the past 12 months.

Importantly, the meeting allowed for a first glimpse at the partnerships’ progress toward intermediate milestones; which will be evaluated in 2019. Realizing these targets will unlock the second share of funding that was committed by CAFI in 2016.

All programs, including those already implemented, under evaluation or to be launched in 2018 were discussed. Participants including the government agencies in charge of relevant programs and the international implementing agencies considered both accomplishments and challenges.

Collectively, participants agreed strong advances had been made, particularly in terms of programming more than 90M US$. Collective efforts involved the drafting of call for proposals, submissions by different agencies (accredited to FONAREDD and CAFI), technical evaluations by independent experts and the technical committee and the transfer of funding.

As a result of action taken, eight programs were approved - five becoming operational, and more than 58M US$ being disbursed to implementing agencies. Support for programs in several high deforestation areas (Mai Ndombé, Oriental and Sud Ubangui), will come through the World Bank, UNDP, FAO and UN-Habitat.

Not without challenges, constituents also commented on the various issues that had a negative impact on the capacity of the DRC to reach relevant milestones. Obstacles included the temporary suspension of cooperation between FONAREDD and the Ministry of Environment in September, which was subsequently resolved in December following the re-engagement of the Ministry in FONAREDD activities.

Other obstacles included the delayed implementation of integrated programs due to complicated procurement processes, belated transfer of funding, and prolonged approval processes for complex programs. Based on these findings, CAFI and the Government of DRC are discussing concrete action to address these challenges.

Ultimately, this multi-partner forum provided an opportunity for all constituents to better understand the distribution of the portfolio of CAFI funded programs and how the government is making progress towards the intermediate milestones.

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Follow @CAFISecretariat to #LookBackAt2017 project highlights as we head into the new year

In 2016, the DRC’s Minister of Finance ; Norway’s Minister of Climate and the Environment; and the Multi Partner Trust Fund Office of UNDP signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) between the Government of the DRC and CAFI to establish a “cooperative partnership for the implementation of the DRC’s National REDD+ Framework Strategy and REDD+ Investment Planover the 2016-2020 period”.